Another state with a waste plan

Another waste plan has hit Massachusetts who proposes to ban commercial food waste in 2014. The state will require any entity (except residential) that disposes of at least 1 ton of organic waste/week to donate or re-purpose it. The main goal is to send this waste to an anaerobic digestion facility that will convert the waste into a biogas to produce electricity and heat. The state will be offering low interest loans to companies building these types of facilities. The alternative is to send the waste to composting or animal feeding programs. Read more about it here.

This is great progress in addressing our “dump” space and harnessing the wasted energy that comes from throwing food into a dump, but we like the idea of composting more—making new, healthy soil for our hard working farmers.

However, AD appears to be an arguable comparison to composting. Similar to composting, AD uses a type of bacteria to break down organic waste to generate an environmentally benign byproduct that can be used as a natural fertilizer. Unlike composting, AD also produces a second byproduct, a biogas which can be used as a fuel like natural gas. When methane is used as a biogas, it turns into CO2, which is 1/20th the warning potential of methane.

Sus-tain-able

1 : capable of being sustained
2 a : of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged
b : of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods